Real Living: Inside - Adventures in space

Loft-living is now the stuff of popular fantasy. But in reality, have lofts had their day? asks Oliver Bennett

SINCE THEY burst on the property scene seven or so years ago, lofts have become associated with a certain glossy schtick - designer youths draped over curvy sofas, Alessi coffee pot burbling at one end of the tennis-court-sized room. Indeed the loft, with its design-savvy baggage of industrial chic and hardcore urban location has become one of the most glittering fantasies of the Nineties.

Thus has a generation of home-hunters crept in from the 'burbs to scour the avenues and alleyways of inner-city Blighty, looking for the warehouse of their dreams. Estate agents signs on loft developments have changed from boring old capitals to soft Bauhaus lower-case. Forgotten light industrial districts have been renamed "Mid-Town" or "Southside". Prices are huge. All this packaging is often extremely irritating, in its bogus New York way. But, sadly, it still remains much easier to purchase a loft off the shelf than it does to tart one up yourself. While the original, arty loft-dwellers were prepared to make do with unreconstructed lofts, often lived in illegally - I recall staying in a loft near the Tower Bridge where the Elsan toilet had to be slopped out once a day - today's long-term loft dweller has higher expectations.

A certain ethos remains from the pioneering days, that one should fit the "space" out oneself. Hence the tendency for developers to sell lofts in "shell" form, a process which appeals to the purchaser's creativity but adds time and cost that is not necessarily recouped. Due to this uncertainty, the trend to buy shells is now abating. Also, the newer lofts are usually smaller - often, in truth, apartments with a twist rather than the football pitch-sized expanses of fashionable imagination. "The number of unfitted lofts is going down, and the newer lofts that are coming on the market are tending to be smaller and are already fitted out," says Miles Bridges of chartered surveyors Fairbrother, which has examined the loft market in the inner London heartlands. Part of the reason for this, thinks Bridges, is that, "If the market does turn, the developers have something they can rent out." Customers are also becoming wary that they will be able to get back their bridging and fit-out costs.

Those that did purchase shells and fitted out their own lofts can perhaps relax, as Bridges believes that most sellers are getting their costs back, "though they are not seeing the same level of return as the orthodox housing market". Bridges has calculated that most loft buyers spend between pounds 30 and pounds 60 per square foot fitting out their shells: considerably more than the average home buyer. "It is easy to spend more than you hope to gain, " he adds.

But there are other ways to go about getting the loft of your dreams. Designer Rock Galpin has rented a loft in Shoreditch, London, on a five- year renewable lease, and was able to design the loft to his own specifications (along with architect Jacqueline Beckingham), with his landlord paying: he would then receive a "live-work" space that was also a showcase for his interiors work. It is an unusual arrangement, but one that currently works. "Renting it means I'm not chained to the place," says Galpin, who has lived there since last September following two months of building work.

He was relieved that he did not have to sort out the thornier issues such as planning permission from the local council which, though now easier, have thwarted many a would-be loft dweller. "Going it alone would be a nightmare," he admits. "You can admire these places that have boards outside them, but often they are so run-down it takes the budget and clout of a property developer to do anything about them."

Galpin's old curtain warehouse is now a great example of London loft style: the brick has been exposed and sandblasted; the floor is covered in birch-faced ply, huge uncovered windows look over the Hackney urb-scape. So spacious is Galpin's loft, which he shares with two others, that he is able to run a large office as well as living quarters with no sense of being cramped. There are disadvantages to the open-plan arrangement. But when he recalls a previous two-bedroom flat which he measured at 450 sq ft, he can breathe more easily in his 2,400 sq ft loft. For one of the effects of the loft movement has been to start us, continental style, calculating housing in terms of floor space. A veteran of loft living - he spent the previous four years nearby in a similar rented loft - Galpin remains an advocate of the loft ideal. "Even if lofts lose some of their fashionable status, I'm sure the trend to open-plan living will keep on growing," he says."It meets so many needs."

Working at home, being able to walk to "happening" local bars and restaurants - these are central to the popular loft fantasy, as is the pared-down industrial aesthetic. And as for values such as cosiness: well, Galpin isn't that bothered. As a self-employed designer, Galpin is, of course, precisely the sort of person for whom a loft makes perfect sense. But most of us prefer to keep our loft fantasies as just that: fantasies.